Paul Thurrott on the next version of Windows and the future of the platform.

In some ways, the most interesting thing about Threshold is how it recasts Windows 8 as the next Vista. It's an acknowledgment that what came before didn't work, and didn't resonate with customers. And though Microsoft will always be able to claim that Windows 9 wouldn't have been possible without the important foundational work they had done first with Windows 8 - just as was the case with Windows 7 and Windows Vista - there's no way to sugarcoat this. Windows 8 has set back Microsoft, and Windows, by years, and possibly for good.

With even Paul Thurrott claiming Windows is in trouble, it becomes virtually impossible to deny it is so.

And, using that old, shallow and infamous analogy, we are still using steering wheels and brakes on our cars. But know they have a lot of improvements, like ABS, hydraulic assistance and so on and so forth.

Similarly, the unix descendants incorporated a lot of advances themselves. Also, there is no way to deny that the core concepts of unix created a very flexible and modular beast that can be molded to accomplish almost all our needs (from a base system POV).

Fact is, unless something proves to be really better (in the sense that it makes possible something that can not be achieved without a great effort) or cheaper, we should expect to see that evolutionary steps that have been serving us well. On the absence of a clear advantage, practicality will trump them all.

Microkernels GNU Mach and Hurd, distributed OS Plan9 and Inferno and other attempts failed to deliver something with enough push factor. Granted, many of their concepts were assimilated.

Other things, like modern languages, have carved their space but expect them to eclipse the old methods was unreal.

Things will be adapted until they became too cumbersome, at which point they will be substituted as a wholly or on its subparts, what, conversely, is way more common. It is happening on Linux, it is happening on Windows.